NFL's Roger Goodell addresses Bad Bunny's 'ICE out' Grammys speech

KiMi Robinson, USA TODAYTue, February 3, 2026 at 7:24 AM UTC

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Days ahead of Bad Bunny's upcoming Super Bowl halftime show performance, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is reacting to the musician using the Grammys stage to denounce the Trump administration's federal immigration enforcement surge.

During his annual state of the league address on Monday, Feb. 2, Goodell backed the 31-year-old Puerto Rican superstar and reassured football fans that Bad Bunny "understands" his stage at Super Bowl 60 should be used to unify viewers.

"Bad Bunny is, and I think that was demonstrated last night, one of the great artists in the world, and that’s one of the reasons we chose him," Goodell told reporters.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, left, addressed Bad Bunny's upcoming Super Bowl halftime show performance during Goodell's Feb. 2, 2026, annual state of the league address, which took place a day after Bad Bunny called out U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in his Grammys acceptance speech.

"But the other reason is he understood the platform he was on and that this platform is to use to unite people and to be able to bring people together with their creativity, with their talents, and to be able to use this moment to do that," he continued. "I think artists in the past have done that. I think Bad Bunny understands that, and I think he'll have a great performance."

USA TODAY has reached out to Bad Bunny's representative for comment.

What did Bad Bunny say at the Grammys?

The prior day, on Feb. 1, the reggaeton superstar used his first acceptance speech of the night to address U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and call for more "love" after he won in the best música urbana album category at the 68th annual Grammy Awards.

"Before I say thanks to God, I'm going to say, ICE out," he told the crowd in Los Angeles' Crypto.com Arena.

1 / 0Bad Bunny makes history at the Grammys. The Puerto Rican star's career in photos.

Bad Bunny accepts the album of the year award for "DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS" onstage during the 68th Grammy Awards on Feb. 1, 2026, in Los Angeles

"We're not savage. We're not animals. We're not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans," Bad Bunny continued. "I know it's tough to not hate these days. And I was thinking, sometimes we get contaminados [contaminated]. ... The hate gets more powerful with more hate."

He ended his speech by saying, "So please, we need to be different if we fight, we have to do it with love. If, yeah, we don't hate them. We love our people. We love our family, and that's the way to do it. With love. Don't forget that, please."

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Bad Bunny lets his work speak for itself — what his Grammy wins mean for Latinos

The award show ended with a historic moment when Bad Bunny took home the album of the year award for "Debí Tirar Más Fotos," the first Spanish-language album to achieve that distinction.

It was a win dedicated to "all the people who had to leave their homeland to follow their dreams," and "to all the Latinos in the world and all the artists who came before," he said in English, while delivering the majority of his acceptance speech in Spanish.

Trump, Turning Point USA have criticized NFL's choice of Bad Bunny

In October, President Donald Trump called the NFL's choice of Bad Bunny to headline its halftime show "absolutely ridiculous."

1 / 0Super Bowl halftime shows, definitively ranked from worst to best

Often referred to as the world's biggest stage, the Super Bowl halftime show can draw upwards of 100 million viewers. But the game-break entertainment wasn’t always the pop culture spectacle it is today. Before Michael Jackson’s 1993 performance, it was mostly marching bands and performance ensembles taking the field.As the world gears up for Bad Bunny’s Feb. 8 performance, we look back at the headliners that helped turn halftime into a full-blown extravaganza. And because the Super Bowl calls for competition, we’re ranking the performances from worst to best, starting with Maroon 5 in 2019.The controversy between the NFL and player's protesting social justice meant most artists turned down performing at the 2019 Super Bowl in Atlanta. Maroon 5 (singer Adam Levine, left) was announced only a couple of weeks before the game and the band could only recruit hometown rappers Big Boi (center) and Sleepy Brown (right) to join them. Travis Scott was also a late add after he negotiated a donation from the NFL to a social justice cause.

Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, was shot and killed during a confrontation with federal agents who were conducting an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis on Jan. 24. Pretti was the second person, after 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, to be fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis since President Donald Trump commenced what he's called the "largest immigration enforcement operation ever" in Minnesota.

The two Americans' killings, which took place amid protests in the city that made headlines around the world, happened in the backdrop of similar deportation efforts in cities like Chicago, New Orleans and Charlotte, North Carolina.

Turning Point USA has planned an alternative "All-American Halftime Show" in protest of Bad Bunny's NFL appearance. Kid Rock, Brantley Gilbert and Lee Brice will perform in the competing event during the Super Bowl on Sunday, Feb. 8.

Contributing: Edward Segarra and Pamela Avila, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Roger Goodell addresses Bad Bunny's 'ICE out' speech before Super Bowl

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